On Thursday the Examiner provided an exclusive report indicating that the Obama administration had implemented a covert program beginning in 2009 that was intended to spy on conservative, evangelical Christian churches.

That program involved infiltration — sending in government operatives to join churches for the purpose of data collection. The government snoops would keep their eyes and ears open for criticism of the Obama administration, talk of Tea Party participation, conversations about gun ownership, and a number of other issues.

But a special report issued today by Fox News indicates that the program went far beyond infiltration and snooping. The IRS was used to harass Christian churches if they were identified as places where large numbers of anti-Obama citizens congregated for worship.

The Obama administration, according to the report, considered any public criticism of administration policies to be political in nature and should therefore impact whether or not these congregations were allowed to gain or keep their tax exempt status.

What most people don’t realize is that the IRS has been acting as the speech police for decades. Ever since 1954, when then-Senator Lyndon Johnson pushed for a law enabling the IRS to punish non-profits who opposed him politically, the IRS has been in the business of government censor. What’s worse is that one of the biggest targets of this censorship has been religious people and houses of worship. In fact, one of the IRS’s first targets in the 1950s was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was subjected to a searching IRS audit because of his religious advocacy for civil rights for African-Americans.

The IRS of course has the crushing power to deny or revoke the non-profit status of a synagogue, church, or mosque if it says something the IRS decides is too “political.” But it can also put houses of worship and other religious organizations through the wringer of intrusive, costly, and time-consuming audits.

There are two ways the targeting works. One way is for an outside group, often one that is anti-religion, to file a complaint asking the IRS to investigate a church they don’t like. The IRS responds to the complaint by opening an investigation and asking the church often hundreds of questions about its activities, with the threat of revocation of non-profit status. This is what lawyers call “selective enforcement” and it is unconstitutional. No one should be singled out in this way, especially because of collusion between the IRS and outside groups with an ax to grind.

The second way the censorship starts is for IRS officials to take their lead from high government officials, including the President, to decide which groups to target for disfavor. This is apparently what happened to the “tea party” groups, but religious groups have also been targeted in this way.

Don’t believe it? Just ask Billy Graham. Last fall, the famed Christian evangelist publicly advocated on behalf of a ballot measure in his home state of North Carolina, taking a position that the President and other high government officials publicly opposed. The tax man was knocking at the door almost immediately. And while the expensive, time-consuming audit eventually ended without any finding of wrongdoing by Graham, a message was sent to every other religious group that might oppose government policy: the IRS can use its audit powers to harass you or shut you down simply for saying what you believe. That kind of intimidation is wrong–and unconstitutional.

In a blistering letter to President Barack Obama, the Rev. Franklin Graham said the IRS targeted the two non-profits he heads with an audit last year after the organizations took out ads urging people to support biblical principles on marriage and in choosing political candidates.

In the letter, dated Tuesday, Graham said in light of recent revelations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names, he does not believe the audit was “a coincidence — or justifiable.” Graham, son of famed Christian evangelist the Rev. Billy Graham, now heads the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association based in Charlotte, N.C., and Samaritan’s Purse, a worldwide relief organization headquartered in Boone.

“I am bringing this to your attention because I believe that someone in the administration was targeting and attempting to intimidate us,” Graham concluded in the letter. “This is morally wrong and unethical — indeed some would call it ‘un-American.'”

James Dobson, the pro-life family advocate disclosed today that he was a victim of IRS discrimination, in a revelation that adds to the growing Internal Revenue Scandal.

Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, says he faced discrimination from the federal agency when trying to start a new group.

Family Talk Action Corporation is a Christian ministry that was formed for the purpose of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ; of providing Christ-oriented advice and education to parents and children; and of speaking to cultural issues that affect the family. Dobson is the president and CEO.

On September 2, 2011, Family Talk Action filed a Form 1024 with the Internal Revenue Service requesting § 501(c)(4) status. The attorney completing this form had submitted scores of similar applications over his 26 year career with none being rejected.

In January and February 2013, Family Talk Action’s counsel called the IRS reviewing agent, R. Medley (ID no. 52402), to inquire regarding when there would be a determination of the application. Her voice mail box was full on each of these calls so no message could be left. On March 6, he called Ms. Medley again and got routed to her voice mail again. This time, he was able to leave a voice mail message and requested a return call.

Medley did not call back until March 19. Family Talk Action’s attorney asked her when the IRS would issue its determination letter. Ms. Medley responded saying, I don’t think your Form 1024 (application for exemption) will be granted because Family Talk Action is “not educational” because it does not present all views. She continued, saying that Family Talk Action sounded like a “partisan right-wing group” because, according to Ms. Medley, it only presents conservative viewpoints.

She then added, “you’re political” because you “criticized President Obama, who was a candidate.”

The Biblical Recorder, the official news journal for North Carolina Southern Baptists, found itself in the same situation in March – audited for the first time since the Baptist newspaper was founded in 1833.

The newspaper garnered national attention last summer after Editor Allan Blume published an interview with Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy. In reference to his support of the traditional family, Cathy said he was “guilty as charged.”

“It raised some red flags and made me wonder why we were being targeted for an audit when we have been around since 1833 and have never been audited before,” Blume told Fox News. “Putting it all together made me wonder.”

Blume said the timing may have been coincidental – but “it didn’t seem that way.”

“There seems to be a very anti-Christian bias that has flowed into a lot of government agencies – oppression literally against Christian organizations and groups,” he said. “It makes you wonder what’s going on.

Blume said the newspaper was eventually cleared, but the audit consumed time and money.

“It was a lot of time and energy that we didn’t have,” he said. “It took some of our staff literally several weeks of doing nothing but that (the audit),” he said.

IRS officials refused to grant tax exempt status to two pro-life organizations because of their position on the abortion issue, according to a non-profit law firm, which said that one group was pressured not to protest a pro-choice organization that endorsed President Obama during the last election.

“In one case, the IRS withheld approval of an application for tax exempt status for Coalition for Life of Iowa. In a phone call to Coalition for Life of Iowa leaders on June 6, 2009, the IRS agent ‘Ms. Richards’ told the group to send a letter to the IRS with the entire board’s signatures stating that, under perjury of the law, they do not picket/protest or organize groups to picket or protest outside of Planned Parenthood,” the Thomas More Society announced today. “Once the IRS received this letter, their application would be approved.”

Planned Parenthood endorsed Obama in 2008 and 2012.

The IRS also pressured another pro-life group about its religious activities. “The IRS withheld approval of an application for charitable tax-exempt recognition of Christian Voices for Life, questioning the group’s involvement with ’40 Days for Life’ and ‘Life Chain’ events,” according to the law firm. “The Fort Bend County, Texas, organization was subjected to repeated and lengthy unconstitutional requests for information about the viewpoint and content of its educational communications, volunteer prayer vigils, and other protected activities.”

[A]s details of the IRS scandal emerge, it’s increasingly giving the appearance of a wide-scale effort to tilt the playing field against conservative activist groups who might have been helpful to Republican candidates in the 2012 election, while at the same time coddling liberal groups helpful to Obama.

Consider what we now know the IRS did:

• Gave preferential treatment to liberal groups. On Tuesday, USA Today reported that while the IRS was hounding conservative groups and holding up their applications for tax-exempt status, it was quickly ushering liberal groups with names like “Progress Florida” and “Missourians Organizing for Reform” through the process.

USA Today found that in the 27 months after Feb. 2010, the IRS did not approve a single Tea Party application. Over those same months, however, dozens of applications submitted by liberal groups that were engaged in the same type of activities and were seeking the same tax status as the conservative ones sailed through the agency.

[…] • Made unusual document requests. Not only did the IRS target conservative groups for extra scrutiny, it also asked for massive amounts of information that it couldn’t possibly need to determine tax-exempt status.

[…] • Engaged in selective leaks. This week, ProPublica, a liberal-leaning nonprofit journalism organization, revealed that the IRS had leaked it nearly a dozen pending applications, including one submitted by Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS.

Tom Zawistowski, executive director of the Portage County Tea Party, said donors stopped contributing to causes and candidates because of the confusion and fear that the IRS created.

“They succeeded in preventing us from doing what we were trying to do in 2012,” Zawistowski said. “Groups literally stopped fundraising in the summer of last year.”

The IRS is under investigation for the excessive scrutiny it gave conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status, a practice that elicited complaints from the Portage County Tea Party and other groups during the 2012 presidential election campaign.

Billionaire businessman Frank VanderSloot, a major Mitt Romney super PAC donor who was subjected to three federal agency audits after being slimed by the Obama campaign, says he isn’t the only one of his peers who was audited after donating to Romney.

VanderSloot, who was also national co-chair of the Romney campaign’s finance committee, was described in an April 2012 Obama campaign Web posting as one of eight “wealthy individuals with less-than-reputable records.”

Shortly after the post appeared, VanderSloot was subjected to two Internal Revenue Service audits — one focusing on his personal finances, the other related to his business interests — and a Labor Department audit of one of his businesses. When asked about whether any of the other seven donors who appeared on the list were audited as well, VanderSloot spoke cautiously, but did say he “wasn’t the only one.”

“I talked to only a handful of them since,” VanderSloot said. ”I’ve reached out to all of them. But only got calls back from a handful and most of the responses were they’re just laying low, you know, they took their own beatings and they don’t want any more of it and they don’t want to even talk about this.”

His remarks are all the more ironic, given the explosion of scandals which have been exposed this week, not the least of which involves the Obama administration using the IRS to intimidate and harass political opponents.

The Internal Revenue Service apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was “inappropriate” targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status.

IRS agents singled out dozens of organizations for additional reviews because they included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their exemption applications, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups. In some cases, groups were asked for lists of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

An IRS campaign to apply additional scrutiny to conservative groups went beyond targeting “Tea Party” and “patriot” groups to include those focused on government spending, the Constitution and several other broad areas.

[…] The internal IG timeline shows a unit in the agency was looking at Tea Party and “patriot” groups dating back to early 2010. But it shows that list of criteria drastically expanding by the time a June 2011 briefing was held. It then included groups focused on government spending, government debt, taxes, and education on ways to “make America a better place to live.” It even flagged groups whose file included criticism of “how the country is being run.”

By early 2012, the criteria were updated to include organizations involved in “limiting/expanding government,” education on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and social economic reform.

I am the face of Obama’s IRS attacks. I am proof of how bad it is, when it started, that it was directed at individuals as well as groups, and that it did not involve only “low level IRS employees.”

[…] Most importantly, I’m living proof it was directed at individuals — with the intent of ruining our lives. It almost ruined mine. This is important because the American public needs to see the faces of the targets. I have a wife and 4 children. I didn’t deserve this.

Here is my personal story. I’m a small businessman, but also a national media personality with a megaphone. I’m an outspoken critic of Obama. My views are seen by millions on Fox News Channel, and read at web sites like The Blaze and FoxNews.com. And in almost every media appearance its pointed out that I’m Obama’s Columbia Class of ‘83 classmate. You don’t think Obama noticed?

In 30 years of doing business, I’ve had a spotless tax record. And I had never heard a peep from the IRS. The attack was so over-zealous and out of bounds, I was forced to hire one of this nation’s top tax attorneys, who took my case to court where we won a 100% victory.

My relief at being vindicated lasted five days! Then the IRS announced a new tax audit against me.

My attorney had never heard of such a thing and, before me, assumed it wasn’t possible.

The many legal and accounting experts (who drained my savings) all agreed this could only happen if I was on “Obama Enemies List.”

The attack was chilling and intimidating, affecting every aspect of my life. It was meant to bleed me dry, and teach me a lesson — if you dare to criticize Obama, get ready to lose everything.

“Having been in the position of a chief executive officer, I can understand why a businessman might be reluctant to speak out against the actions of federal agencies that have the power to harm their enterprises,” he wrote in Rumsfeld’s Rules, which goes on sale Tuesday.

“By doing so, corporate leaders could expose themselves and their companies to government retaliation–from the IRS, the SEC, congressional committees, or the many other agencies of the federal government that regulate and oversee their operations,” he added.

Criticism of presidents, he said, is hard. “I suppose if more business leaders defended capitalism, there might not be quite as many smiling photos with politicians.”

As if this weren’t bad enough, it appears that not only was the IRS targeting conservatives for additional scrutiny and investigation, but they were also handing over their confidential information to progressive groups that could use the information against them:

The progressive-leaning investigative journalism group ProPublica says the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) office that targeted and harassed conservative tax-exempt groups during the 2012 election cycle gave the progressive group nine confidential applications of conservative groups whose tax-exempt status was pending.

The commendable admission lends further evidence to the lengths the IRS went during an election cycle to silence tea party and limited government voices.

A little over a year ago, I reported that, ”It is likely that someone at the Internal Revenue Service illegally leaked confidential donor information showing a contribution from Mitt Romney’s political action committee to the National Organization for Marriage, says the group.”

“There is little question that one or more employees at the IRS stole our confidential tax return and leaked it to our political enemies, in violation of federal law,” said NOM’s president Brian Brow, in a prepared statement. “The only questions are who did it, and whether there was any knowledge or coordination between people in the White House, the Obama reelection campaign and the Human Rights Campaign. We and the American people deserve answers.”

The House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight is already demanding all IRS communications which contain conservative buzz words such as “tea party” or “patriot,” along with the names of anyone involved in the scandal.

Planned Parenthood is one of Obama’s biggest fans. They poured millions of dollars and volunteer hours into his re-election campaign, and have been rewarded handsomely for their support.

Obama has directed millions in federal taxpayer dollars into their coffers, sending his Justice Department to sue any state that tries to block taxpayer funding of abortion.

He is forcing all employers – even those with religious objections – to purchase insurance policies that include abortions. And Obamacare is on the verge of creating an enormous boom in business to the abortion industry, which they are preparing for by building enormous new abortion clinics.

It bears repeating that Obama strongly opposed the Illinois Born Alive Infants Protection Act, which would have required doctors to assist babies born as a result of a failed abortion. How about his opposition to a bill that would have prevented partial-birth abortion?

If Obama wanted to make abortion rare, would he be such a strong supporter of Planned Parenthood and its notorious abortion industry? No one could be more in bed with that organization than Obama, who is planning on attending the organization’s fundraising gala this coming Thursday.

Obama and the pro-abortion left don’t want to call attention to the grisly practices of Gosnell for a number of reasons. You can disguise the practice of abortion with euphemisms, such as “they snipped the baby’s spinal cord,” but in the end, we are talking about the intentional killing of human life, and it follows that a facility so morally corrupt as to routinely engage in that despicable practice might not dot and cross all its other ethical i’s” and t’s.

If Obama or the leftist media were to shine a disinfecting light on the Gosnell trial, it might lead to a public discussion on abortion and an inquiry into how widespread such abuses are. The less attention the left permits to be drawn to this the better.

But there are additional sinister reasons Obama and his liberal media cohorts have suppressed the news on this story, knowing as they do just how horrendous Gosnell’s clinic was.

The pro-abortion left ridicules and condemns Second Amendment advocates for being paranoid purists in opposing all restrictions on gun rights, but in the purist and paranoia categories, they make gun advocates look like pikers.

Abortion is the left’s holy grail; it is liberals’ sacred ritual, about which nothing negative may be uttered for fear that it might lead to even the slightest infringement on it. Likewise, the abortion lobby simply will not countenance any restriction on abortion or any negative light to be cast on any abortion practice or clinic for fear that it could lead to a slippery slope whereby abortion might actually become significantly rarer. That would be a big setback for the lucrative abortion industry and for the campaign blood money it generates for supporting politicians.

Hmmm…could it be that the reason people think the GOP is ‘out of touch’ is that they keep ignoring the American people’s concerns about massive debt, out-of-control spending, the erosion of constitutional liberties, and massive power-grabs like Obamacare?

Karl Rove has founded an organization for the specific purpose of bulldozing Tea Party candidates and replacing them with those hand-picked by the GOP establishment.

House Speaker Boehner has caved on Obamacare, illegal immigration, and a host of other issues, and even says that “trusts Obama completely.” WTH???

I believe that the disappointing results for Republicans in the 2006 elections and probably the 2012 elections, as well, were in no small part attributable to frustrated conservatives staying at home.

The thinking among many conservatives has been that the party has consistently fallen short by failing to restrain the growth of the ever-expanding federal government and by failing to nominate sufficiently conservative presidential nominees. That is, if we would just nominate and elect Reagan conservatives and govern on Reagan principles, we would recapture majority status in no time.

The main opposing view — call it the establishment view — holds that Republicans need to accept that the reign of small government is over, get with the program and devise policies to make the irreversibly enormous government smarter and more energetic. In other words, Republicans need to surrender to the notion that liberalism’s concept of government has won and rejigger their agenda toward taming the leviathan rather than shrinking it.

I’d feel better if the ongoing competition between Reagan conservatives and establishment Republicans were the only big fissure in the GOP right now, but there are other cracks that threaten to break wide open, too. Our problems transcend our differing approaches to the size and scope of government and to fiscal and other economic issues.

Reagan conservatism is no longer under attack from just establishment Republicans; it’s also under attack from many inside the conservative movement itself. Reagan conservatism is a three-legged stool of fiscal, foreign policy and social issues conservatism. But today many libertarian-oriented conservatives are singing from the liberal libertine hymnal that the GOP needs to remake its image as more inclusive, more tolerant, less judgmental and less strident. In other words, it needs to lighten up and quit opposing gay marriage, at least soften its position on abortion, and get on board the amnesty train to legalize illegal immigrants. I won’t even get into troubling foreign policy divisions among so-called neocons, so-called isolationists and those who simply believe we should conduct our foreign policy based foremost on promoting our strategic national interests.

[…] I belong to the school that believes the Republican Party must remain the party of mainstream Reagan conservatism rather than try to become a diluted version of the Democratic Party. This does not mean Republicans can’t come up with creative policy solutions when advisable, but it does mean that conservatism is based on timeless principles that require no major revisions. Conservatives are champions of freedom, the rule of law and enforcement of the social compact between government and the people enshrined in the Constitution, which imposes limitations on government in order to maximize our liberties. If we reject these ideas, then we have turned our backs on what America means and what has made America unique. What’s the point of winning elections if the price is American exceptionalism?

The Republican National Committee released earlier on Monday an “autopsy” of its 2012 election failures and pinned the blame on the party being out of touch with voters, particularly minorities.

Limbaugh said the opposite was true. “We are in touch with the founding of this country. We are in touch with the greatness in this country and its people,” the popular radio commentator said, according to Politico.

Limbaugh said that if the party moves away from championing values, such as traditional marriage, it will lose support among its base.

“If the party makes that [gay marriage] something official that they support, they’re not going to pull the homosexual activist voters away from the Democrat Party, but they are going to cause their base to stay home and throw their hands up in utter frustration,” Limbaugh said.

Limbaugh said it was party leaders who were out of touch with its own base.

The Republican Party is violating time-tested, basic principles of sales and marketing. That’s why the GOP is failing to communicate its messages. On Monday, the Republican National Committee released a massive reform strategy, whimsically labeled an “autopsy” or “reboot,” to completely overhaul the GOP. Like Democrats in 1992, Republicans are growing hungry to win in 2014 and 2016.

Here is what is wrong with the Republican Party. This author taught in a sales training seminar firm in Eastern Europe, International Trendsetters. The solutions are overwhelmingly time-tested and proven in real life. This is not theory. Republicans are chronically making classic rookie sales mistakes.

“FAB” — Features, Advantages, Benefits. You must explain how a policy benefits the voter. Bad salesmen talk about features — the radio has a better tuner. Good salesmen talk about how the radio benefits the customer — you will enjoy the music more and set a better mood for your love interest because it sounds better and clearer. People don’t buy a mattress. They buy a good night’s sleep. And maybe good décor.

On Monday, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus explained that we must talk about how Americans benefit from low taxes and lower national debt. We have to talk about how Republican policies will put more people to work, at higher salaries, improve our economy, and strengthen our country. Republicans talk about details — lower taxes, lower regulations, lower deficits. We fail to explain why those details actually matter to the voter.

But isn’t it obvious? No. Classic rookie mistake. It’s obvious to you if you spend lots of time thinking about these things. It’s not obvious to busy people who have other things to think about, which they feel are more important in their lives. Yes, you have to draw them a map.

There is an imbalance between the speaker who is extremely familiar with a topic and the listener who isn’t. The speaker needs to understand how the speaker really sounds to the listener. Republicans skip over too many steps and assume too much. The American voters are smart. But they haven’t spent as much time thinking about your topic as you have. We have to be able to empathize with the busy listener and even remember how we were when we first learned about these issues.

It is amazing that the GOP has been so bad at this, when Ronald Reagan was so good at it. If anyone is thinking of running for office, Step #1 is to listen to every speech Ronald Reagan ever gave. Several times. Reagan “got” it. Then the GOP lost it.

Next, the mind abhors a vacuum. What you don’t say can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion. People have never stopped talking about cuts in education, even while education spending soars year after year. People will assume you want to help the rich by lowering taxes. They will assume you hate immigrants. They will assume you want women barefoot and pregnant. If you don’t explain how GOP policies benefit the listener, their minds will fill in the vacuum with other explanations. If you don’t provide a reason, their minds will provide one for you.

Third, love objections. This is one of the most powerful principles good salesmen know. We view objections with dread. A voter tells you why they don’t like the GOP. Time-tested sales techniques have proven that objections are opportunities. When a prospect tells you what he is concerned about, you now have the opportunity to address his or her concerns.

This is especially true when a voter believes something that isn’t true about Republicans — if they are willing to talk to you, that is. Proven sales experience shows that when someone is willing to tell you their negative views, and talk to you about it, you have an open door to dramatically turn around their perceptions.

Of course you have to treat them as a future friend, not as a current enemy. But the overwhelming majority of successful sales are closed after the third or fourth objection. That’s right, most sales succeed after not just the first negative response, but after several negative issues are raised and discussed. But you have to care about the other person as much as you care about yourself to answer their concerns fully, fairly, and respectfully.

Fourth, “ask for the order” as RNC Chairman Reince Priebus described on Monday. In other words, you have to show up. You are not going to win over any hearts or minds sitting in your office across the street from the Capitol South Metro station (the RNC headquarters). It is common sense that you have to go out and talk to Hispanics, Blacks, and other groups.

The GOP’s “outreach” efforts have often been embarrassing. Republican campaigns appoint leaders of, say, “Korean-Americans for Bush,” then order bumper stickers and campaign pins. And that’s about it. Pretending to be doing outreach, but not really, is a Republican specialty.

Democrats are preparing for a major nationwide fight on the gun issue by purging the party’s moderates–including the very candidates it cultivated in 2006 and 2008 to win seats in conservative districts. Republicans are preparing for a major debate on immigration reform by purging the party’s conservatives, casting opponents of bipartisan legislative efforts as bigots who will doom the party to ongoing electoral failure.

It is true that both parties have shown little tolerance towards moderates lately. Democrats began the purges in 2004, when the left netroots commandeered the Democratic National Committee elections. In 2006, the anti-war movement succeeded in defeating Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary in Connecticut. In 2010, the Tea Party began defeating establishment, moderate Republicans in the GOP primaries before going on to wipe out the Blue Dog Democrats, finishing what the anti-war movement had already started. In effect, Capitol Hill today is divided not by two governing parties but two opposition movements, speaking past one another.

But the Democratic Party has managed to maintain a striking degree of party unity, even amidst grumbling and dissatisfaction with President Obama’s disappointing performance. It has done so primarily through Chicago-style carrot-and-stick patronage dished out by the White House, partly by demonizing Republicans, but also by defeating, silencing or otherwise co-opting the party’s moderates before going into big legislative battles.

[T]he pattern remains the same: the new, netroots-and-community-organizer Democratic leadership dispenses with party’s moderates, while the old Republican establishment tries to marginalize the grass roots conservatives who are largely responsible for the limited electoral successes the party has enjoyed in recent years.

The time for moderation is over. Obama and the Democrats are advancing the most extreme left-wing agenda in American history. From radical left-wing judges and cabinet appointments, to the most radical anti-liberty regulations and legislation ever imposed (Obamacare, HHS mandate, gun control, EPA…). They’ve helped radical Islamic jihadists in their conquest of the Middle East, and armed extremist drug cartels. They’re succeeding because they actually STAND for something – Socialism and the destruction of America as we know it – that their base firmly believes in.

Republicans can no longer afford to be “moderate.” It’s time to give Americans a REAL choice between liberty and tyranny. Block, defund, and filibuster the left-wing extremists at every turn. Run the most conservative, liberty-minded, fiscally responsible candidates, and advance a pro-liberty agenda: school choice, entitlement reform, REAL spending cuts and tax cuts, defunding Obamacare and agencies that impose extreme anti-business regulations, etc. It’s time to actually STAND for something. The time for moderation is over.

[H]ere is how the pitch goes: Obama can not enact his second-term agenda without significant help from outside groups. Those outside groups can channel resources through Obama’s old presidential re-election apparatus, which has now been rechristened “Organizing for America,” an IRS 501(c)4 tax-exempt “social welfare” organization.

The sole purpose of OFA will be to advance Obama’s policy agenda, and to that end, Obama will meet personally with OFA’s national advisory board in the White House at least four times a year. And, here is the money part: You too can become a member of the national advisory board for the bargain basement price of just $500,000. OFA hopes to become “a powerhouse national advocacy network” by selling such slots to wealthy donors and raising $50,000,000 this year.

If that isn’t selling access, then we don’t know what is. And it’s also a clear case of hypocrisy — of Obama doing precisely the thing for which he harshly criticized others, and with which he formed the very core of his political identity as a candidate of “change.”

Pressed to defend Obama’s hypocrisy, White House press secretary jay Carney insisted that OFA is an “independent organization” and that Obama meets with many independent organizations like environmentalists and labor unions all the time.

But none of those organizations exist for the sole stated purpose of, in Carney’s own words, “rallying support for the president’s policy agenda.” None of those organizations used to be Obama’s presidential campaign. And none of those organization can officially speak for the president, as OFA does through the authenticated @BarackObama Twitter account. No one who ponies up $500,000 to OFA is under any illusion that OFA would ever do anything the White House did not want it to.

The only way this should surprise anyone is if they bought the idea that a Chicago Machine politician would ride into Washington to clean up that one-horse town. What looks bad is the shock,shock that ensues when Obama reveals himself to be every bit a product of that Chicago environment.

The surprise here isn’t that there was fraud. It’s that they actually being investigated at all. As long as this continues unchecked, with a slap on the wrist for those who get caught, a pat on the back for those who don’t, and accusations of “racist!” against anyone who dares to suggest voter ID, the Republicans will never win another significant election. Democrats will fix the outcome long before the votes are tallied.

“Yes, I voted twice,” Richardson told WCPO-TV. “I, after registering thousands of people, certainly wanted my vote to count, so I voted. I voted at the polls.”

Authorities also are investigating if she voted in the names of four other people, too, for a total of six votes in the 2012 presidential election.

“I’ll fight it for Mr. Obama and for Mr. Obama’s right to sit as president of the United States,” Richardson vowed when asked about the voter fraud investigation that is now under way.

Richardson is one of 19 people suspected of illegal voting by the Hamilton County Board of Elections in the last election.

“I’m outraged, and every voter, regardless of their political affiliation, should be outraged,” said Hamilton County Board of Elections member Alex Triantafilou, who is also chairman of the county Republican Party. “It causes folks to have real doubts about the fabric of our very democratic process, and it’s dangerous. It is disconcerting that someone would be so bold as to admit their conduct in such a fashion … We fully intend to prosecute these cases.”

On election day, there were poll watcher volunteers who were trained to spot this kind of fraud and report it before it got out of hand.

But the Obama campaign, intent on stealing the election, actually made lists of individual citizens to target specifically because they were there to help prevent voter fraud:

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, True the Vote shared emails between Obama staffers discussing targeting specific individuals they believed were associated with True the Vote in Hamilton County, Ohio. Official records obtained by True the Vote indicated that the private citizens on the Obama target list were poll clerks hired by the county–not observers placed by candidates.

The email’s author, current Consumer Financial Protection Bureau employee Scott Pluta, stated with certitude that these people were affiliated with True the Vote locally.

“There are a number of elements to this finding that are concerning,” True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht said. “The idea that an incumbent presidential campaign would build target lists on citizens that are specifically trained to detect fraudulent behavior in the polls is truly unnerving. You would think that kind of story would be told in developing nations, not the United States.”

Nothing. That is what President Barack Obama did on the night of September 11, 2012, as terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and killed four Americans, among them Ambassador Christopher Stevens. President Obama’s inaction was revealed in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday by outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey.

Under direct questioning by Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Panetta admitted that he had no communication with President Obama after their “pre-scheduled” meeting at 5:00 p.m. EDT. The attack on the consulate had already been under way for 90 minutes at that time. Neither the president nor anyone else from the White House called afterwards to check what was happening; the Commander-in-Chief had left it “up to us,” said Panetta.

Panetta’s testimony directly contradicts President Obama’s own claim to have issued “three directives” as soon as he learned “what was going on” in Benghazi.

[…] Panetta was also forced to admit, in the face of vigorous questioning by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), that no military action at all had been taken to intervene in Benghazi after the attack had begun, promising only that a similar lapse would not happen again.

[…] In sum: President Obama did nothing to save Americans under attack from terrorists. His Secretary of Defense did nothing. His Secretary of State did nothing. The Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff did nothing. His Deputy National Security Adviser defended doing “nothing” to help bring the perpetrators to justice. And the entire administration participated in an effort to cover up the truth. Because there was an election to be won.

While giving Senate testimony regarding Benghazi on Feb. 7, Sec. of Defense Leon Panetta said Obama was not present nor did he communicate with the Sec. of Defense during the Benghazi attack.

Whether or not Obama was present, the fact remains that he neglected as Commander-in-Chief to act when American lives were at stake. He knowingly abandoned them in harm’s way. In the morning, four Americans were dead, and Obama was on a plane to his next fundraiser.

The election is over, President Obama has just been sworn in for a second term, and cold treatment of Israel is already firmly in place. Mr. Obama has signaled during the past two months what lies ahead for U.S. relations with Israel through several actions.

[…] Mr. Netanyahu’s likely re-election on Tuesday as Israeli prime minister will mean continuity of leadership in both countries. This does not imply continuity in U.S.-Israel relations, however. Mr. Obama, freed from re-election constraints, can finally express his early anti-Israel views after a decade of political positioning. Watch for a markedly worse tone from the second Obama administration toward the third Netanyahu government.

Recall what Mr. Obama said privately in March 2012 to then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev: “This is my last election and after my election, I have more flexibility.” There is every reason to think that having won that re-election, things have now “calmed down” and, after a decade of caution, he can “be more up-front” to advance the Palestinian cause against Israel.

Mr. Obama has won his second term, and Israel’s troubles have really begun. Jerusalem, brace for a rough four years.

CNN correspondent Jim Acosta was positively giddy while covering President Obama’s inauguration parade on Monday afternoon, and didn’t hold back his feelings on-air.

“You know, I feel like I should pinch myself right now, Wolf. I can’t believe I have this vantage point of history in the making,” Acosta gushed. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Acosta later added that “It’s good to be the President. It’s almost like being a rock star on every street corner of Washington on this day.”

Acosta showed no such excitement when he covered the Romney campaign for CNN during this past election.

[…] Unfortunately, Acosta has not been alone at CNN in exhibiting extreme enthusiasm for President Obama. During the inauguration parade, Wolf Blitzer raved about “history over here” and shouted out and waved at Obama as he passed by.

Like one of President Obama’s adoring fans camped out along the inaugural parade route on Monday, during live MSNBC coverage of the event, NBC Today weatherman Al Roker excitedly yelled at Obama and later Vice President Biden to get their attention as they walked by. His hard-hitting question to the President of the United States: “Is the weather good?” [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

[…] Obama gave Roker a thumbs up but kept walking. When Biden passed by, Roker pleaded for a handshake. After initially resisting, the Vice President jogged over and obliged. Following the brief interaction, Roker shouted into the camera: “Yes!” MSNBC host Martin Bashir applauded Roker’s accomplishment: “The Vice President has just shaken hands with Al Roker of the Today show. He’s done it!” Fellow MSNBC host Chris Matthews chimed in: “Well, Al finally got some attention, I love it.”

Throughout most of human history, transfers of power involved the coronation of a king or emperor, who’s only claim to power was either his birth or the conquest of his rival, whose reign was for life, and whose subjects were at his complete mercy.

Two centuries ago, our founders gave us a radically different system, where leaders were chosen from among the people to be public servants who were held accountable by the people, where no man (regardless of position) was above the law, where power was limited to prevent its abuse, where God alone was our King, and where government was prevented from taking that dictatorial role in people’s lives.

It is an awesome privilege to be the beneficiary of such a gift, and yet it carries a heavy responsibility of civic duty to hold our government and public servants accountable when they overstep their legitimate, constitutional authority.

Today was a day of inauguration, not coronation. We respect the results of the election, but we also remember that the constitutional limits of government power and the rule of law that protects our liberties are NEVER up for a vote.

Today, it was not just a president who is being inaugurated, but also We The People, who must shoulder our responsibility to uphold and defend the constitution against all threats, foreign and domestic. May we take that solemn charge faithfully and honorably, as our founders did.

Sounding the same themes of class warfare that propelled his re-election campaign, President Barack Obama devoted his second inaugural address to laying out his second term agenda: a struggle to undo the seeming injustices of America’s past, and to overcome the army of straw men that stand in opposition to progress.

In the process, President Obama attempted nothing less than an assault on the timeless notion of liberty itself:

Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills can be cured through government alone.

But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.

After praising the “collective” and mocking the notion that America is a “nation of takers,” President Obama targeted the political opposition. He targeted those who “deny” climate change, attacked those who allegedly refused to reward the elderly for their contributions, and defied critics whom he said wanted “perpetual war.” He attacked the rich–as he has done so often over the past four years–and painted a caricature of an unjust nation: “…our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it….We do not believe that in this country, freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few.”

President Obama’s address failed to deliver on promises earlier in the day by senior political adviser David Axelrod that the speech would sound themes of national unity on a day of national “consecration.” Instead, the president sounded combative themes familiar from his divisive first term, albeit wrapped occasionally in the lofty rhetoric of “hope” and “tolerance,” and punctuated by the repeated refrain: “We, the People.”

[…] Throughout his address, the President maintained his voice in a near-shout. This was not an historic address, a reflection on a moment in history; it was an exhortation to political action, in contrast to the political reality of a divided Washington, in defiance of the profound economic challenges still facing the American people.

It was a declaration of political war on individual liberty. It was a wasted opportunity–and a warning.

Obama spelled out his true agenda: destroying founding principles about limited government to meet changing times. While paying lip service to “our skepticism of central authority,” Obama said that times have changed, and “so must we”: “fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges … preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.” This was the sheerest form of rhetoric sophistry; equating freedom with government control is an perverse reversal of language. Of course, the Constitution was written based on the notion that human nature does not change – people are not angels, nor devils, but self-interested creatures capable of greatness or evil, who must be checked against each other. But Obama doesn’t believe that. He believes that man can be made anew.

But only by government. And so Obama demonized limited government as anarchism, suggesting that meeting “the demands of today’s world by acting alone” is like forcing American soldiers to meet “the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias” – a straw man argument so blatant it appeared Obama would wheel out Ray Bolger to present it. In pursuing his agenda, Obama made clear that he will ignore basic realities – “we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.” He made clear that he will create false histories – “we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty, and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn.” He made clear that he will redefine taking and giving – those who wish to save their money for their families and children are “takers,” and those who wish to confiscate the wealth of others “strengthen us.”

In the end, Obama’s argument was a collectivist one. And it was an argument designed to irreparably tear this nation apart. Obama himself said it: “Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life; it does not mean we will all define liberty in exactly the same way …”

But this renders the Declaration of Independence Obama cited completely meaningless. The founders may have disagreed on many things, but they agreed on the meaning of liberty: the right to live as an individual, without centralized planning infringing basic property rights, economic opportunities, and religious freedoms. Obama’s fundamental redefinition of liberty to include communitarianism is not merely wrong, it spells the end of the political commonality that has held the fabric of the nation together. If we define liberty differently, then there is nothing to talk about: my liberty is your tyranny, and vice versa. Our goals can never be shared. That gap can never be bridged.

Obama sure knows how to pick the radical wackos. Never, in all my years attending different churches, have I EVER heard a pastor attack a particular group of people as “enemies,” ESPECIALLY over political differences!

I guarantee that if a pastor from a church that a conservative (Sarah Palin?) attended made comments about going into “battle” against Democrat “enemies,” the news media would be freaking out for a week about the “controversy” surrounding his “violent,” “extremist” rhetoric, demanding his resignation, and they’d have all the dirt from his past dug up within 24 hours.

Obama, said Braxton, was just like Moses facing the Red Sea: “forward is the only option … The people couldn’t turn around. The only thing that they could do was to go forward.” Obama, said Braxton, would have to overcome all obstacles – like opposition from Republicans, presumably, or the bounds of the Constitution. Braxton continued, “Mr. President, stand on the rock,” citing to Moses standing on Mount Horeb as his people camped outside the land of Israel.

In case Braxton missed it, America won its freedom 237 years ago, and the slaves were freed 150 years ago – by a REPUBLICAN. Obama isn’t leading anybody out of slavery. He’s leading them INTO slavery – the slavery of dependence on the Welfare State, which black conservatives like Star Parker call “Uncle Sam’s Plantation.”

But it wasn’t enough to compare Obama with the founder of Judaism and the prophet of the Bible. Braxton added that Obama’s opponents were like the Biblical enemies of Moses, and that Obama would have to enter the battle because “sometimes enemies insist on doing it the hard way.”

So anybody who doesn’t immediately bow and cave to Obama’s political agenda is an “enemy?” Funny, I thought Jesus taught believers to LOVE their enemies.

The service ended with the pastor leading the crowd in a chant of “Forward.” Really.

This was no religious service. It was a worship service for the man Newsweek labeled “The Second Coming.” And if Obama thinks anything like the pastor he chose just before taking his oath of office, America is in for a long, narcissistic, imperial four years.

Indeed.

Where is the IRS to challenge the church’s tax exempt status for preaching politics from the pulpit? Oh, that’s right: they only enforce that against conservative churches that don’t worship at the altar of the Almighty Messianic Welfare State.

It would be difficult to list ALL of his accomplishments…our first credit rating downgrade, a frozen economy that refuses to thaw, a major stepping-stone to socialized medicine, a slew of unconstitutional power grabs, an “Arab Spring” that has turned into “Islamic Winter” of Middle-East turmoil, the alienation of Israel, and so much more…but I think these numbers pretty much sum it up:

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